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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

What the Bourne Identity Can Tell You About Your Family History (Really!)

Jason Bourne, the action hero of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity, has a fairly unusual surname, ranked as the 3,461st most common name in the US, according to Name Facts.

Of course, it's not nearly as rare as my own last name, Sarokin, with a ranking of 249,774 (take that, Jason). Still, Bourne is a good test name to see how much family history information any given lookup database is likely to provide.

It's always fun searching the half-billion records at WorldConnect. Turns out they win the prize for free databases, with almost 67,000 Bourne's...9 actual Jason Bourne's...to speak of (but only 11 Sarokin's...can you believe it!).

Turning to some of the more popular genealogical subscription databases, there are more than half a million Bourne's in Ancestry.com (207 Jason's), and 314,000 Bourne's in NewspaperArchive.com

I could go on and on, but by now, you might well be asking: What's the point?

The point is...there is information on your family name...your family history...your ancestors!...in more places than you might imagine. Searches of large databases are usually fast, easy and, with luck, very revealing.

So don't delay. Start searching roots, and find out how many Jason Bourne's, er, family relations, you can find.

Welcome to Free Genealogy Tools

While searching for your family history, you've no doubt already hit the main sites and services online. But there are a ton of free resources that are incredibly valuable and not very well-known. That's what Free Genealogy Tools is all about. Each new post will explore a new site you can use to research your family's origins in great depth.

But first, I have to mention two subscription services that are well worth the cost, and that also offer some useful freebies. Ancestry.comThis is the richest, quickest source of family history info on the web. You can search the site for free, though, to see what sort of info is available.

NewspaperArchive.comA fantastic resource... I've been a subscriber for years. Just about everyone's family gets into the newspapers at one time or another, with events large or small. This is the place to dig it all up.